In order to improve the quality of systematic researches, various tools have been developed by well-known scientific institutes sporadically. Dr. Nader Ale Ebrahim has collected these sporadic tools under one roof in a collection named “Research Tool Box”. The toolbox contains over 720 tools so far, classified in 4 main categories: Literature-review, Writing a paper, Targeting suitable journals, as well as Enhancing visibility and impact factor.

English abstract

Writing an
article for online distribution in a way that maximized the chances of
citation hits, is different from preparing one for print journals in
some small, but important, respects. To be cited, articles have to be
visible in an electronic environment. Therefore, publishing a high
quality paper in scientific journals will be a halfway of receiving
citation in the future. The rest of the way is advertising and
disseminating the publications by using the proper “Research Tools”.
Familiarity with the tools allows the researcher to increase his/her
h-index in the short time. This article provides a list of simple yet
effective ways to promote your publications

An overview of the institutional membership programs offered by Open Access publishers

If you are a researcher, a librarian or an administrative worker in a
research facility, you may want to suggest for your institution to
enroll in one of the membership programs offered by Open Access
publishers. These programs are designed to decrease the cost of
publishing Open Access works and to diminish the administrative issues
related to paying them.

Open Access books and journals are generally funded via Processing Charges
(APC or BPC), which must be paid every time a new work is being
published. Usually, these are not paid by the authors themselves, but by
the institution supporting the author – his/her employer or research
funder. However, institutes that have already published a lot in this
model, or that simply would like to promote Open Access among their
authors, may facilitate this process (and save money) by signing an
agreement with one or more chosen publishers, instead of paying
separately for the publication of every single work.

At present, almost every Open Access publisher offers membership
programs. Some of them only apply to publishing in journals, while
others (including the ones from De Gruyter Open)
may also be adapted to Open Access book publishing. Although most
programs differ when it comes to the details, it is not difficult to
identify a few major models.

1) The first, and probably most popular, is the ‘partners fee model’,
which is offed by several publishers under different names. In this
model, research institutes pay a custom annual fee based on their number
of researchers, and they receive a discount (usually around 15%) on
each article/book processing charge. However, this model forces all
authors working for the institution to publish a given amount of
research every year. As a result, it is possible that the institute in
question may only save very little money – or no money at all.

2) The second most popular model is the ‘pre-paid institutional membership’,
whereby the institution deposits some funds on the publisher’s account.
In turn, this money is used to cover further article/book processing
charges for any of the researchers, including a discount ranging from 10
to 25% (depending on the publisher).

3) The ‘partners fee extra’ – which is offered by
Hindawi under the name of ‘annual membership’ – is a custom annual fee
that covers the costs of all works published by institution members in
the following year, regardless of how many articles they write. The
actual fee is based on the number of researchers affiliated with the
institute, as well as their research output level. In this model, the
obligation to publish a given amount of research with the contracted
publisher is even stronger.

4) Finally, the ‘post-paid institutional membership’
is a model in which the institution only pays once for all the articles
published by its authors in a given elapsed period of time. However,
this form of membership, which PLOS calls ‘direct billing’, does not
certify any discounts. It is simply a system of monthly billing for all
published articles.

5) On the other hand, the ‘post-paid institutional membership’ that was recently introduced by De Gruyter Open
also includes a 15% reduction of processing charges for all contracted
institutions (without any additional fees). As a result, the institute
pays for all the books and papers published by its authors at the
beginning of the following year, while also benefiting from a discount.

Therefore, if you work for an institution that supports its authors
by paying article/book processing charges, it may be a good idea to
approach your administration and discuss joining an institutional
membership program. If your research institute does not have sufficient
funds to cover the cost of Open Access publications, try to establish
it. Do not let your colleagues rely on aunt Agatha any more!

Monday, 7 July 2014

Promoting Open Access research with the Internet and social media

This post is the fifth part of my series ‘How to promote an Open Access book?‘ Although having realized that it may apply to both books and papers, I decided to change the title a little bit.

It is impossible to imagine promotion without the Internet and
especially without social media. Obviously, this also includes promoting
research. However, it is important not to overestimate the significance
of Internet promotion – it can be worthless without the use of other
methods. Therefore, before you start to think about Twitter, Facebook or
Academia.edu, make sure that you have thought through all the steps I
have described in my previous posts on book promotion. Especially
networking, discussed in my first entry,
which is unavoidable when talking about efficient strategies in social
media. Social media may support your action conducted in the ‘real
world’ (like attending conferences, participating in workshops,
discussions etc.) but it will not replace them.

A second important truth about social media is that no third party
service offers you full control. One day a post you submitted on a
social media platform or even on your own account might be blocked or
deleted. Services themselves might also be discontinued (who remembers
MySpace?)

Create a personal website

It is clever to establish your personal website and to treat it as a
primary place for on-line publication (this is easy thanks to free,
modern content management systems such as WordPress).
Create the website in the domain of your research institution or
university. If you do not have such an opportunity, buy your own domain
(it is not very expensive). All your publications, databases and
research outputs should be first of all submitted there (I hope you have
chosen a publisher who allows it) and then promoted via social media.
It is wise to create a separate page named ‘publications’ on your
website. Remember that the file or article metadata (title, author
etc.) should be visible on the page that is linked to the document. Post
your academic CV on to your website (you can create separate page for
it).

Get ORCID

Ok, you are done with the website. Now it is a good time to get your Open Researcher and Contributor ID
(ORCID). ORCID is a persistent and unique number, which distinguishes
you from other researchers, even those with similar names. It is used by
authors and publishers (including De Gruyter) to attribute works to
respective contributors. You can use ORCID to link all your online
publications – your website, blog entries, as well as social media
profiles – to one account, with complete information about your
scholarly works.

Use your website as a blog

Finally, you can use your website as a blog to share information
about your new professional concepts and all promotional events,
discussions and conferences that you are taking part in. Write about
your involvement in the research community, let your blog entries become
a part of your every day social networking. Every time you write about
something, try to inform the people who are involved in this particular
event or discussion, but do not be annoying (social media and especially
Twitter is a perfect tool for letting people know that you have
mentioned them – more below).

Choose Social Media Platforms

Nowadays there are several social media platforms, including some
dedicated only to scientists. In my opinion Twitter, Google Plus,
Facebook, LinkedIn and Academia.edu are the ones that you should
consider when thinking about promoting your work. You probably do not
have enough time to contribute everywhere. Cheer up, nobody has.
Twitter, G+ and Facebook are quite dynamic and are good for continuous
communication with people that follow you. You should choose at least
one of these services to promote your blog posts and to discuss recent
events and issues connected to your work. I think it is wise to choose
the one that you are already familiar with, and that is used by your
co-workers and friends. If you have no personal preferences I recommend
Twitter – it is the most popular among scientists in Western Europe and
USA. Do not forget to link your social media profiles to your website
and your ORCID.

On the other hand, LinkedIn and Academia.edu allow you to submit a
lot of information regarding your career as a researcher and to post
your works. I would recommend doing that, even if it duplicates the
information on your personal website. These services have their own
internal search and recommendation tools and are quite popular, so your
profile here might be more discoverable for some people than your
website. If you decide to create your profile on one of these social
networks do not hesitate and publish as much professional information as
you can and add publication lists (with full text PDFs – if your
agreement with a publisher allows this), your ORCID and your personal
website.

At the very end, I would suggest publishing the final version of your book or paper, including your data, notes, etc. on Figshare.
Figshare is attracting growing popularity due to two important facts:
You can upload data in every format (images, audio, charts, tables, as
far as full text etc.) and each separate piece of content uploaded there
receives its own DOI number, which makes it more discoverable.

Is it a lot of work? Hmm, maybe even too much. Above all, remember to
take care of the quality of your research, then discuss it with
colleagues, find a good publisher, promote your work at conferences,
meetings, seminars, etc., and then if you still have some time left,
think about Internet promotion.

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About Me

Nader Ale Ebrahim has
a Technology Management PhD degree from the Department of Engineering
Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya
(UM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He holds a Master of Science in the
mechanical engineering from University of Tehran, Iran.